JAY CURRIE has thoughts on preparation for avian flu. Once again, it’s worth noting that those preparations are also likely to be useful in the event of other outbreaks.

I have related thoughts on technology and preparedness over at GlennReynolds.com.

A LOOK AT LAWBLOGGERS in The New York Times.

IS THE MIERS NOMINATION IN TROUBLE? She’s polling like Robert Bork, and she’s flubbing easy questions.

UPDATE: Miers’ defenders will have to do better than “shut up.”

ANOTHER UPDATE: Virginia Postrel has lots of interesting things to say about Miers — just keep scrolling.

MAJOR JOHN TAMMES, fresh back from New Orleans, has thoughts on the proper use of the National Guard.

IS IT A BLOG BOOM, or a blog bubble?

I THOUGHT EVERYONE KNEW that law librarians rock.

BETWEEN BOOK-WRITING AND OTHER PROJECTS, I’ve been exceptionally busy this fall. And though I’ve always viewed slow-cookers with some suspicion, I have to say that this All-Clad Slow Cooker, which my sister-in-law gave me for my birthday, rocks. I’ve used it several times a week, to make lamb stew (with Guinness), gumbo, spaghetti sauce, cornish game hens, etc. It’s a little weird to be preparing dinner at 8 a.m., but it’s pretty nice to get home at 5:30 or 6 and find it cooked, and the house smelling nice. At my brother’s recommendation (yes, we Reynolds men tend to be the cooks in our households) I got this cookbook, which rocks, too. (My sister-in-law gave me this cookbook, which has great recipes but most of them are kind of heavy on prep work; I prefer the “fix it and forget it” approach, most of the time.) I should have gotten one of these things years ago. (And my apologies for stepping on Bill Quick’s turf. . . .)

FROM PHOTO ANALYSIS TO VIDEO ANALYSIS.

PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE:

I have the distinct impression that the Democratic Party sees the liberal blogosphere as being inside the tent, while the Republican Party views the conservative blogosphere as being somewhere between an irrelevance and a minor nuisance. Maybe this is true, at least in part, because many prominent “conservative” bloggers (Andrew Sullivan, Glenn Reynolds, Stephen Green, and Eugene Volokh spring to mind) are not exactly stalwart Republican party loyalists but rather libertarians (or whatever) who put routinely put their principles ahead of party interests. Alternatively, maybe the Democrats have just decided to follow Lyndon Johnson’s advice about keeping your critics inside the tent peeing out rather than outside the tent peeing in.

I think he’s right. There’s no doubt that the GOP party apparat is less engaged with the blogosphere, overall, than the Democrats’.

THE DSCC SCANDAL reaches the New York Times.

RADLEY BALKO CELEBRATES M.A.D.D.’S 25TH ANNIVERSARY by calling them a bunch of prohibitionist twits:

Even MADD’s founder, Candy Lightner, has lamented that the organization has grown neo-prohibitionist in nature.

“[MADD has] become far more neo-prohibitionist than I had ever wanted or envisioned …,” Lightner is quoted as saying in an Aug. 6 story in the Washington Times. “I didn’t start MADD to deal with alcohol. I started MADD to deal with the issue of drunk driving,” she said.

Unfortunately, the tax-exempt organization has become so enmeshed with government it has nearly become a formal government agency. MADD gets millions of dollars in federal and state funding, and has a quasi-official relationship with the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In some jurisdictions, DWI defendants are sentenced to attend and pay for alcoholic-recovery groups sponsored by MADD. In many cities, MADD officials are even allowed to man sobriety checkpoints alongside police.

On the occasion of its 25th anniversary, perhaps its time Congress revisit the spigot of federal funding flowing to MADD, and consider revoking the organization’s tax-exempt status. Clearly, MADD isn’t the same organization it was 25 years ago. It has morphed into an anti-alcohol lobbying organization. There’s nothing wrong with that — it’s certainly within MADD’s and its supporters’ First Amendment rights.

But taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to subsidize them.

Indeed.

MORE THOUGHTS ON BUSH’S SPEECH here and, from Donald Sensing, here.

LARRY LESSIG ADVERTISES a Creative Commons fundraiser.

JONATHAN GEWIRTZ does a media compare and contrast.

LOTS MORE on the Oklahoma suicide bombing.

UPDATE: More here, too. Also here.

ANOTHER UPDATE: On the other hand, here’s a lengthy post casting doubt on the Islamic-terror angle.

MICHAEL YON HAS A NEW REPORT FROM MOSUL, with particular emphasis on how the Iraqi forces are doing. Read the whole thing.

UPDATE: Westhawk compares Mosul with Ramadi and draws lessons.

MORE ON AVIAN FLU: No wonder Bush seemed so up-to-date at the press conference the other day.

ROB ANDERSON IN THE NEW REPUBLIC:

When it comes to the oppression of gays and lesbians in Muslim countries, gay activism hasn’t died; it never really existed. Gay activists have used two types of excuses to justify their failure to aggressively mobilize for the rights of gay Muslims–moral and strategic. The moral argument is that Americans are in no position to criticize Iranians on human rights–that it would be wrong to campaign too loudly against Iranian abuses when the United States has so many problems of its own. Then, there are two strategic rationales: that it is better to work behind the scenes to bring about change in Iran; and that gay rights groups should conserve their resources for domestic battles.

The strategic rationales are not especially compelling, but it is the moral argument that is particularly troubling, because it suggests that some gay and lesbian leaders feel more allegiance to the relativism of the contemporary left than they do to the universality of their own cause. Activists are more than willing to condemn the homophobic leaders of the Christian right for campaigning against gay marriage; but they are weary of condemning Islamist regimes that execute citizens for being gay. Something has gone terribly awry.

Indeed.

BOB CASEY IS NOW LEADING RICK SANTORUM by eighteen percent.

A MILBLOG BOOK: Cool.

A VERY NICE PIECE ON ACADEMIC BLOGGING by Henry Farrell.

HERE’S MORE on efforts by the UN and EU to take over the Internet. You can bet that they’ll do their best to quash criticism of corrupt international bureaucracies if that happens.

UPDATE: Reader Julian Morrison emails:

It’s like I posted to Slashdot: why would the EU and the UN want to grab control, when that control right now is only being used for laissez faire? Because they want to /stop/ the laissez faire!

China wants to take down Tibetan and Falun Gong sites. Germany wants to ban neonazis from the internet. The arab nations would want to kick off Israel until it “fulfils its international obligations”. Etc etc. This is nothing less than an attempt to stuff the information genie back into its bottle.

At all costs, they must be prevented from claiming the spurious moral high ground! Confront them with the question: what would you change? And, why not go through process at ICANN? What would you want to do,
that they would refuse? And why?

Indeed. The U.N. and E.U.’s moral high ground is usually spurious, in my experience.

IN THE MAIL: Peter Schuck’s new book, Meditations of a Militant Moderate : Cool Views on Hot Topics. Not a great title in my opinion, but a very interesting-looking book, with chapters on immigration, racial reparations, military recruiting on campus, etc. Here’s a bit of what he says about the military recruitment issue:

The Supreme Court will decide, but let us assume that the schools are right on the law — that their interviewing rules as applied to the military do not violate Solomon (now amended to require “equal access” by recruiters) or that the First Amendment prevents Defense from sanctioning them. A key question remains: Should law schools have such policies in the first place?

Virtually all the schools (and the AALS) long ago answered affirmatively, but I have my doubts. I strongly favor barring discrimination against gays and protecting academic autonomy in the face of political pressures. But law schools shold be dedicated to a third norm, too, one that would discredit their position on this question. As a matter of principle, law schools should treat their students as mature individuals who have absorbed enough education, legal and otherwise, to assess the evidence and make their own choices among employwers without needing to be “protected” by the schools. Why should the schools screen employers’ practices for some of the most critical and well-informed young adults in the country? Can’t students make up their own minds on this?

They can, of course, but letting them do so deprives law schools of the opportunity to display moral superiority at low cost, which is what the recruitment policy is all about.

PORKBUSTERS UPDATE: Reader/reporter Evan Dawson emails:

Today I had the chance to speak with Rep. Tom Reynolds (R-Clarence, NY) regarding his views on the pork-for-relief proposal. Reynolds was in town to talk about new federal plans to deal with gas gouging and energy conservation. During his response, he referenced several projects for which he earmarked money in the transportation bill. One is a road safety improvement. The other project is known in Rochester as Renaissance Square; it will be a combination of an underground bus terminal and an upscale performing arts center. Reynolds helped secure three separate earmarks that total roughly $8 million for the project. Elected leaders have tied the arts center to the bus terminal in order to make it eligible for these kinds of transportation earmarks.

Rep. Reynolds had this to say: “When you look at the road and bridge projects, I don’t think people of the 26th District, on the type of money that I was able to bring back, are gonna want to say, ‘Let’s stand aside.'”

Regarding Renaissance Square and road safety improvements: “I don’t think those are luxury items that were brought in on the federal transportation bill.”

On why giving up the earmarks is a poor idea: “If we moved that money and voluntarily gave it back, it comes out of the state’s allocation, and the state would be penalized on the formula that we put together in order to participate in these types of dollars. Are there questionable projects that are in that bill? Sure there are… But I think the projects that I brought in, and others I’ve seen by neighboring districts, are vitally needed road improvements that are part of our transportation planning, and also come out of our transportation formula for New York. I think there are good ways to find cost savings to pay for Katrina. I think taking it away from local projects isn’t the answer.”

I’d like to reiterate that as a reporter, I take no position on the pork-for-relief proposal. I just want to make sure the public has ample information on this issue. I’ll continue to provide responses as we get them from elected leaders.

Thanks.

Evan Dawson
13 WHAM Reporter
Rochester, NY

Tom Reynolds is, I stress, no relation. And I’m glad to see local media asking questions like this, even if I don’t like the answers much. Just remember this if Reynolds runs on an anti-spending platform.

Meanwhile, reader Steve Cooper emails:

I contacted my congressman Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD) asking about cutting “pork” from the Transportation Bill to help offset the costs of Hurricane Katrina. I received a letter back from him touting his support for the Katrina spending bills and that there was “no pork” in those measures to cut?!? Not one mention of the Transportation Bill or any real concern about the excessive spending spree that Congress has been on. I plan to call back and hold their feet to the fire on this and will pass on any further responses.

Good. There sure seem to be a lot of Republicans who aren’t interested in cutting pork.

NANOTECHNOLOGY UPDATE: IF YOU BUY IT IN HARDCOVER, it’ll cost you $150, but Robert Freitas & Ralph Merkle’s book on Kinematic Self-Replicating Machines is available online for free.